Twenty-Four
by DiscordantSymphony
Summary: It's never easy, coming to the conclusion that your parents might not like you that much. Might not want you, it's even worse when you understand they want a different version of you that you have no chance of being able to beat in anyway. Add to that sickness, and all in all it's been a bit of crappy year for Christopher Perry Halliwell. Sick!Chris. Set in the changed future.
1. Chapter 1

Twenty-Four.

Chapter One

His birthday had never been something that he had ever, ever, looked forward to. To be honest, he was fairly sure that it was cursed. Any why not, he had died on his birthday at the same time as he had been born. In the universal scheme of karma, that he had to do something to give you some bad energy that would not leave.

And considering how his birthdays had turned out up to now, he had no reason to disprove that theory was true.

He had heard from one of his aunts that his first birthday party had needed to be canceled, the rational at the time had been that there had been things that he needed to do and it wasn't like he would remember it. Which was true, he didn't remember it he had just been a baby after all, but surely that wasn't the point in the end.

They always lived with the threat of demons or warlocks or something else coming up and attacking them and as long as Chris Halliwell had been alive he could never remember any of his cousin's first birthdays being cancelled. Wyatt's certainly hadn't been, after all when it came to King Arthur everything was special and perfect and such a landmark couldn't go unremarked on.

Chris sighed and reached for a plate on the draining board and plunged it in to the warm, soapy water. That really wasn't the issue and he knew that it was petty. He had basically gotten over his issues with Wyatt a long, long time ago. They weren't as close as maybe some people thought that they should be but he didn't hate his brother, Chris didn't think he was ever going to be capable of that. And the issue wasn't with his birthdays and how they always sucked, they were just sort of related.

No, the issue was his parents and him.

Chris knew that factually his parents did love him, if they did not then they would have put him up for adoption a very long time ago. His Mother always made sure that he was feed and made sure that he always had clean clothes to wear. When he was young and he would have nightmares, she would always come running and hold him tight to her, stroking his hair and singing a lullaby to him until all of his fears had gone and she wouldn't let him go until he had fallen back to sleep.

His Dad always made a point to all his children that he loved them, that they were all as important as one another. It was honestly kinda obvious that he was terrified that he would spend too much time with one of his children and the other two would grew to resent him for it, there were no special Wyatt and Dad days, or Chris and Dad days or Melinda and Dad days. When they spent time with their dad, it was all of them as a whole.

Ironically, it kinda had the opposite effect of what his Dad had wanted. All of them loved him, but both Wyatt and Melinda probably perferred their Mother and when Chris had been younger he would have said that he was the same. Now days, things were just too complicated for him to say if he had any fondess for either parent. Love, yes. But being a Halliwell meant that love was basically just another word for duty.

You had to love your family, you just didn't have a choice.

So yes, he loved his parents. He just didn't like them very much. And why should he, they clearly didn't actually like him.

The conclusion had been drawn a year ago, one year exactly give or take a few hours either side, on his twenty-third birthday. It had started out abnormally, in that there had not been a massive call around in the morning to let everyone know that due to unforseen events that the party had to be cancelled. And yes, he could count the number of times his birth was actually celebrated by the whole family on one hand and still have fingers left.

Everyone was at the manor, Mom had cooked up a storm and as usual she had made all of his favourites. It had been a great day, probably the best party that he had ever had. There had been dancing and talking and, when the little ones had been put to bed, drinking and it had been amazing with not even the whiff of a demon to spoil it.

But, of course it couldn't last. His birthday was cursed, after all. They were still up at midnight when the old clock in the hallway chimed midnight and everyone who had been present let out a cheer and Chris had been smiling when he had turned, but the smile died when he caught glance of his Mother looking at him, with naked disappointment in her eyes.

And in that moment, everything clicked into horrifying place and he wanted to scream.

It wasn't his birthday, his birthdays were always cancelled or something got in the way that always spoilled them and lead to them being cancelled on the day. This wasn't any different, not at all.

Because it wasn't his birthday, it was a welcome back party. For the other him, the him that had come back from that dark future to save his brother and had died when he was born. His Mother was disappointed that he hadn't magically come back, his soul overtaking his body and his mind overwritting his own, she was sad that he hadn't been forced out of his own life.

His dad was much the same, he was better at hiding it then his mom was but he could still catch glances of it in his eyes. The same eyes that Chris had. Why was the son he had raised for the past twenty-three years still here? Why hadn't the stranger from the past who he had treated like shit come back so he could make it up to him as well.

Chris knew about his other self, of course. He had for a very long time in point of fact, all of them did. It was a story that they had all been told when they were kids, edited at some points of course as at the time they had only told him that the other him had only come back to save Wyatt from something and not that he had been turned evil.

At the time, Chris had been proud. He was a hero and Wyatt had needed him to save him, it didn't matter what timeline they were in Wyatt never needed to be saved by anyone. So, it was great to think that just once some version of him had needed him. Even if it was just only the once and that it wasn't really him or Wyatt.

And there was the rub, it wasn't really him or Wyatt. That was the core point which divided him from his parents. Those versions of himself and his brother weren't really them in Chris's mind, they were versions of them of course but they weren't them surely that was why the other him had come back in the first place, so that neither of them would ever have to be them.

When he got older, they of course learned more and more of the true story of what had actually happened and he didn't blame his Mother or his Dad for how they had looked at him at the time, he thought it was understandable that they were sad whenever they thought about Chris Perry. After all, he never existed. He had sacrificed his life and existence for a better, brighter future.

But it didn't stop at missing, they wanted him back. Which fine, understandable. But it wasn't just wanting him back, they wanted him back in place of the son they had actually spent the time to raise. And the food and the clothing and all that meant nothing, they were just making sure that the other him had a look after body to come back to.

But it hadn't happened, had it? There was no other soul, that soul had never existed in this timeline. There was just him and so he hadn't even been granted the mercy of oblivion, he just had to keep going with the knowledge that all the time this his parents had spent rasing him wasn't because they loved him. They were just biding their time.

"You know, I only have so much glasswear angel." His Aunt's voice called from behind him and Chris glanced back at her before looked down at the glass he had been cleaning, only to see that it had been covered in a thick coating of ice. Damn, it had been a very long time since his Cryokinesis had gone out of control because he was upset.

"Sorry Aunt Phoebe." Chris muttered, focusing his Thermokinesis through the glass to melt the ice. Once it was all gone, he washed the glass again and put it on to the side. A small and gentle hand came to rest on his shoulder while another came up to rest on his face, turning him to face her.

"It's your birthday, you shouldn't be doing the washing up." His aunt spoke, a hand coming up to move an errant lock of hair behind his ear. Chris closed his eyes and savoured the touch, just for a moment before he turned back to the sink.

"I don't mind." He honestly didn't, it was a task that he could do and it kept his mind busy. Most of the time, anyway. And if there was any time that he needed to be distracted, then it was today.

His aunt sighed and Chris felt guilty, it was hard for him to say no to her. It was kinda ironic, apprently Past Phoebe hadn't been all that fond of his other life but in this one, Phoebe had never been anything but loving to him. Once, Chris might have admitted to perferring his Aunt Paige but when it was clear that she had been waiting for the other him, well, that had set that bridge on fire.

"You know, your Mom called. She was asking about you." Okay, anger needed to be kept under control. No throwing glases into the wall with telekinesis, no blowing the electrical sockets and no orbing. "Apprently, you have't been around to pick up the present that she got for you. She's been waiting all day for you to swing by."

Chris withdrew his hands from the washing up bowl and dried them on the nearest flannel, turning to face his favourite auntie. "Well, it's late. I will head other to the manor tommorrow." A big difference between the other him and himself, he was a really shit liar. He was not going to go to the manor tommorrow, nor the day after, he wasn't going to the manor for as long as he could. He hadn't gone to the manor in a year.

"Chris, angel, look at me." His Aunt stepped closer to him and Chris could feel her nudging him, Chris had been an Empath since he was six years old and it had been Phoebe who had taught him how to deal with that. It had also been his aunt who had taught him how to send emotions, not just recive them from other people.

He let the walls fall, and in a moment he was consumed with warmth and love through the empathic link and Chris smiled, sending much the same back. Aunt Phoebe smiled at him. "Chris, I know it's been hard for you. But please, you need to believe me when I tell you that your Mom and your Dad do love you, and they miss you a lot."

Chris frowned, and the walls slammed shut once again. Turning his back so he wouldn't have to see the hurt look on his aunt's face. "Maybe they do, but not as much as they miss him. After all, it's only been a year since I've actually seen them. The other me's got twenty-four years worth of a head start. Hey, maybe she just wants to see if I've been taken over yet."

His aunt sighed and knew that she wasn't going to win this one. "All right, all right." It was silent for a moment, the only noise coming from the living room where his cousins were screaming about something or other. Five girls meant that it wasn't a house that had a lot of peace, he knew that he and Wyatt and Henry JR used to take the piss out of how Aunt Phoebe used to be so baby crazy.

But at least she loved all her kids because they were her kids, and didn't want better versions of them. She might have seen a vision of PJ before she had her but she had never wanted PJ to be anything other than herself, whoever that was. And PJ wasn't held up high on a stand, and her kids were special and perfect just as they were in her eyes, Chris had seen that again and again.

Chris, he had found himsellf thinking back over his entire life, and he had found himself thinking about all those times he had acted different to his other self. He was more willing to let things go than his other self had been, he was more quick to be open with his feelings, demon hunting wasn't exactly something he was thrilled with doing and it didn't take much to pry him away from the Book of Shadows if you wanted to do so.

Even looking back at things that by logic alone should have made his parents happy, did not seem to because it meant that he was different. It meant that he wasn't the other version of himself. He could cook, and if he said so himself he was damn good at it, whereas the other him apprently did not even know what mutton was. He had been more open with his affection when it had come to Dad, he had hugged him every day but of course the other Chris wouldn't have done that.

Maybe he should have just been calling him Leo all this time and orbing out every time he walked into the room, maybe that would have actually made his Dad love him more than he did. God, all of this sucked.

"So, what have you got planned for tommorrow?" His aunt asked.

"PJ, Kat and Tamora and I were just going to hang." He knew a lot of his friends teased that he was closer to his female cousins rather than say his brother but that was the way it had always been, and while Aunt Paige was more distant in his affections these days that did not mean that he still didn't love his twin cousins with everything that he had.

He was about to say something else, when a squirm in his stomach started. He had cooked a lot of food today, and he had eaten quiet his fair share. He reached up and rested his hand on his stomach, when the squirm in his stomach became a stabbing pain and he screamed as he fell to his knees, a pounding headache formed in his head.

He could hear his aunt screaming at him, screaming for help but Chris could not see her. The entire kitchen had gone dark, the whole world was spinning and he felt like he was to be sick. Then he actually was sick and he could hear his auntie screaming again, he didn't understand what was happening, he was fine. There had been nothing wrong with him, it had to be magical. It had to be-

No, it couldn't be.

God, please no.

I want to stay. I want to stay.

Please Mommy, please let me stay.

Please-

End of Chapter One

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**Ooof, it's been a while since I've written a Charmed fic and when I do I just go right for the gut, sounds like me tbh.**

**I'll leave you with this cliffhanger for now.**

**Please leave a review, a follow and a favourite if you enjoyed.**

**With warmest regards,**

**DiscordantSymphony**


	2. Chapter 2

Twenty-Four.

Chapter Two

Was there ever a more horrifying sound in the world than the ringing of a phone in a house in the middle of the night? Piper was certain that there wasn't. Her eyes shot open when she heard the phone ringing out in the hallway and she sat up and glanced over at her husband who had sat up at the same time as her, his green eyes that their middle son shared with him were filled with worry and his skin had turned as pale as the sheets on their bed.

Piper threw her covers off of her and rose from the bed, running out into the hallway and she didn't need to check to see if Leo was following her as she knew that he was. She reached for the phone as soon as she was out in the hallway, bringing it up to her ear before she swallowed around the lump in her throat. "Hello?"

"Piper?" It was Phoebe's voice, and for a moment a flush of annoyance ran through Piper when she realized that considering that her sister was not her favourite person as of late as she had basically stolen her son from her, she hadn't seen her boy in almost am entire year and it had been the source of a great deal of tension within her home and her family at large as it was as none of them knew what any of them had done to drive Chris away from them, except for Phoebe, Coop, their girls and Paige's twins.

"Phoebe, what is it? What's wrong?" The silence that followed her question seemed to strech on for an eternity, and in the silence Piper noticed the sound of her eldest and her youngest joining her and her husband in the corridor, her eldest son and her daughter had seen a little more of their brother than she had in the past year but that wasn't saying much as a stranger in the street had probably seen more of her middle child who had only seen Chris for a moment across the road had probably seen more of her son than she had.

On the other side of the line, her sister made a wet noise that Piper, having known Phoebe all of her life sent alarm bells off in her mind because Piper knew that i was the noise that her younger sister would make when she had just been crying heavily and was fighting with all that she had in order to stop herself from starting to cry again. "Piper, it's Chris. He collapsed in my kitchen, he was coughing up blood and it was coming out of his nose and I don't know what's wrong with him, the doctors are still with him right now. Get to San Francisco Memorial, now."

All the air had been ripped out of her lungs and the phone slipped out of her numb fingers, it never hit the floor as Melinda froze it in mid-air and Leo picked it up and spoke to Phoebe through it while her eldest son came up behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him and considering how his mouth was opening and shutting he was more than likely saying something to her but Piper couldn't hear any of it, there was just a low sort of hum in her ears.

Her mind had been cast back to twenty-four years ago, when the squirming bundle had been placed into her arms and had looked up at her with eyes that had already turned the brilliant green that she had been seeing around her home for over the past year and a half. How happy she had been, to know that her son was born and that he was going to be able to go back to a bright and beautiful future where he could be safe and happy with a brother that cared for him and would protect him.

And how it had all fallen apart when she had finally returned home and she had learned the truth. Her son was dead, even when he was still sleeping safely in her arms. He had been killed by someone that her husband had trusted, someone he had considered to be a mentor. And he hadn't been able to save him, none of them had.

And she had told herself that it didn't matter, she needed to look after her baby, both of her babies. And she had her duties as a Charmed One and as a sister to distract herself from her grief, and it was easier and easier to forget about it as her son grew and grew.

It got harder of course, when her son began to look more and more like the stranger who had come back from the horrible future to save his brother and the rest of their family and his only reward had been to be stabbed in the guy and then erased from time because the future that he had come from had never existed and thus neither had he.

She did not know if she should have thought of it as better or worse when it became clear that her son had none of the memories of his other self, it spared her and Leo from having to try and explain to their son about how an another version of himself had come back from the future in order to try and make it better, for himself, for their family, for everyone.

But it was something of a double edged sword, because it meant that her brave boy who had sacrificed everything for them was really gone and he was never going to come back to them. It mean, that she would never really be able to make for all the horrible things that she had said to him, all the horrible things that she had done including throwing him out of his own home.

She had tried, they all had. Once they had learned the truth of who exactly Chris Perry was but even back then it had never seemed to be enough, and that conclusion had only grown stronger and stronger as she had gotten older and her regrets seemed to become an even sharper knife. A reminder that she hadm't known her own son, that she hadn't trusted him and that she had treated him so terribly.

And in the end, she did need to wind up telling this Chris about the other one. Paige, who had let something slip, because of course she had, when she had been babysitting the boys for her, when Chris had still been a child which had caused both him and Wyatt to start asking questions and in the end she had no choice but to tell them something, she did not think that she would be able to look into Chris's eyes again if she didn't.

So she had told them a story, a fairytale. Of an older brother who had been trapped and made powerless by evil, a trap laid so long ago in the past that none of them had seen it coming, of a brave little brother who would never give up on his brother and so travelled back into the past to stop the trap from ever being laid in the first place.

It had been a happy middle ground, she had told them something about the other Chris while avoiding all of the pain and death that had come with. It had taken all that she had not to burst into tears when her younger son had asked her if that meant that one day, he would need to travel back from the future as well to save Wyatt again.

She had explained that he wouldn't need to, because the reason that he had needed to travel back into the past had never happened now which meant that the future that he had came from never existed and thus that version of Chris had never existed either.

Chris, her little peanut, who had been sitting up in his bed when she told him this, had gotten this serious frown on his face and his eyes had narrowed and it was like both his other self and Prue had clawed their ways back from the void in order to haunt her and he had spoke just a few words, but they were enough to make her heart shatter into a million pieces. "That's sad, Mommy."

Piper had nodded and agreed that it was before quickly tucking both of her boys back in, giving the both of them a kiss on the forehead, before she got up and fled from the bedroom before either of her sons could see her cry. She only let the first tears fall when she was safely back in her bedroom with her husband where she proceded to bawl into Leo's chest.

As her sons got older they both became more and more curious about the story, ironically enough it was on the morning of her younger son's fourteenth birthday when the other version of her had died, which she had learned later on from her own Father around the time that Chris was five, that she had finally given in and told the both of them the truth of it.

It had been...a lot. The party had needed to be cancelled, none of them had really felt like celebrating.

In the days following it, Wyatt had fallen into a severe depression from leaning that he had in one version of reality not only been evil, but he had been the Source of All Evil itself and he had destoryed the world and that a version of his little brother had to die and be wiped from existence in order to set things right again.

It had been awful to see, it had been awful to live with. Wyatt had always worn his heart on his sleeve and that heart was just so large, he felt so much that more than once Piper had given thanks that her eldest had never been an Empath as she was fairly certain that Wyatt would not only destory himself from all of the feeling, but also the city as well.

She and Leo had been so busy trying to make sure that Wyatt didn't fall apart and rasing Melinda as best as they could that Chris had just sort of, slipped through the cracks. They had never meant for that to happen, Leo certainly had not meant for it to happen considering how important it was to him that he had a good relationship with all of his child but even more so with Chris, but it just kind of wound up happening.

Chris drifted away from them, and life went on. Wyatt got better but Piper still kept as close an eye on him as she could, she was very glad that she had managed to convince him to move back into the Manor, and demons still attacked but they deal with them. They went to work and celebrated birthdays, poor Chris's always seemed to never quiet work out the way that they should, and they all just kept living.

Her youngest son had been distant, and both she and Leo had noticed that. And they had made a promise to themselves that they were going to do something about that, Chris's twenty-third birthday was coming up after all. First thing that they had agreed on was that it was not going to be cancelled, no way in hell. The only way that they would even consider doing that would be if the Source, Zankou, Hecate, Shax and every demon and warlock that they had ever dealt with all came back and attacked all at once and even then that would only be enough to make them consider a delay.

And it had worked out so well, everyone had arrived at the manor early in the morning and all of them had hidden as they waited for Chris to get up with the intent to surprise him. Okay, that probably wasn't the smartest idea that she had ever had as they had kinda been conditioned to respond to any sudden movement with using their powers so she really should have forseen what would happen.

But, once Henry was healed and a phone call had been placed to make an appointment to the doors in the sunroom repaired, the rest of the day had been basically perfect. She had made all of Chris's favourites and the look on his face when he had seen the spread that she prepared for him was probably going to be one of her favourite memories of her kids, Chris featured far too fewly in those and she was going to make sure that changed.

It had been in the afternoon and most of the family had moved out into the backyard and Piper had gone into the kitchen to make sure that the cake was doing okay, Chris's favourite of course. Banana cake with mocha frosting with candied peanuts as a topping, it was a bit heavy for Piper's tastes but it was Chris's day and she would make him whatever he wanted today.

She had been just looking at it when Leo had walked into the kitchen, she didn't need to turn and look to see that it was him. He was her husband and living with him as long as she had done, well, it gave you a different kind of magic. And it was one that she would trade for anything in the world.

She had gotten to her feet and was about to tease him and ask him what he was doing in there with her instead of being outside with everyone else, the cake did take a while to cook so they probably wouldn't notice if they decided to slip upstairs and into the shower for a couple of minutes or so but the look on her husband's face put an end to that. The last time that she had seen him look like that was years and years ago, during the dark time after the other Chris's death.

She had seen a lot of terrible things in her time as a witch, innocents that she had failed to save, their broken bodies on the ground from energy balls or fire balls, Mark Chao's burned body in the middle of the alleyway as his spirit looked at his own body with wide eyes. But even with all of those horrible things that had happened, the state that Leo was in during all of that mess had scared her more than anything else.

They had both sat at the kitchen island and Leo told her what was worrying him, Chris had died when he was twenty-three in the past? What if he somehow got all of his memories back from the other timeline, what if his other self actually came forward and merged with the other Chris? What would they do if that actually happened, how would they explain it to Chris, what if the other version of their son came back?

So, while the party carried on for the rest of the day neither Piper nor Leo could find themselves enjoying it, it was like a sword was hanging over their heads and any moment it was going to come crashing down on them. When midnight finally arrived and the old clock in the hallway sounded out for all to hear, Piper was so happy that her son was still her son.

But all the same, she wouldn't be able to deny that a small part of her was sad that her son hadn't got his memories back, that the other Chris's soul hadn't come forward to merge with this Chris so that at she could have had both versions of her son. But, she guessed that wasn't the way that it was meant to be.

And after the party, despite their best efforts, the slight distance that had formed between Chris and them had turned into a chasm. It had been a year since the party and she hadn't seen Chris since and each day that passed without seeing him was like another knife being shoved into her chest, she knew where he was of course, he was with his Aunt Phoebe who he had basically moved in with and that had not done much to help her mood either.

She had hoped that he would come over for his twenty-forth birthday, she and Leo had saved up to get him an, in her view, frankly amazing present but nope. He had sent her a text, didn't even bother to call her, and that was it. He was going to spend his birthday with his Aunt Phoebe, his Uncle Coop and his cousins.

Yeah, she might have lashed out with her power after she had read that and caused all of the plates in the kitchen to shatter.

And now, her son was in the hospital and she had none nothing about it. He could be hurt, he could be dying and she wasn't the first to know. How could she have let this happen, she should have gone to him. She should have made him talk to her, he was her boy and whatever had caused this distance between them shouldn't have matter, she should have tried to fix it.

She was going to fix it, he was going to be fine and she was going to fix it.

Leo swallowing roughly brought her out of her miserable thoughts and she looked at her husband as he placed the phone back down, turning to face them his eyes were red. "Wyatt, Melinda. You both need to go and get dressed and you need to do it quickly. Your brother's in the hospital, we need to get there as quickly as we can."

Both of their other children didn't need to hear much more than that, as they ran back into their rooms. Piper stepped towards Leo and soon enough she found his arms wrapping around her and his face being buried into her neck. "I can't lose him again, Piper. I can't, if he dies. It'll kill me, I know it will."

Piper didn't know what to say, so instead she simply stood there stroking his hair as they waited for their other children.

End of Chapter Two.

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**Another chapter done.**

**This was going to be longer and would have seen the Halliwells getting to the hospital and speaking to Chris, but I decided to make that the next chapter and have it be from Leo's perspective.**

**Anywho, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I hope you will consider leaving a favourite, a follow and a review.**

**With much love, **

**DiscordantSymphony**


	3. Chapter 3

Twenty-Four.

Chapter Three

Hospitals always had the same smell, no matter how much they changed over the years, no matter their condition or how much money they had coming into them it didn't matter to Leo as underneath it all there was still that same smell. He wasn't sure how to describe it, he wasn't even sure that he could. It was the smell of fear, of fragile hope that would only need a feather light push in order to shatter it, it was the smell of life and it was the smell of death.

And his son was right in the middle of it and that sent a shiver down his spine, he had always hated the thought of Chris going into hospital. He hadn't died in the hospital before, he had died in the manor but knowing that Chris was here, that whatever was wrong with him was so bad that he needed to be brought here had sent him right back there to the Manor where his son had died and Leo hadn't been able to save him, where he had failed him.

And now he had done it again, his son would be laying in a bed by now and he could be dying all over again and Leo was still powerless to do anything about it, to do anything to save him. He hadn't been exagerating when he told Piper that if Chris died then he wouldn't be able to survive it. No parent should ever have to lose a child, but losing the same child twice?

Leo didn't care how strong a person could be, no one could survive that. He would not want to.

The woman behind the front desk had told them that Chris was still being seen by the medical team in the ICU, and when they had learned that Leo was certain that the ground had opened up beneath his feet was going to swallow him whole as it meant that Phoebe hadn't been overreacting which, despite how much he loved her, she had been known to do. It meant that something was seriously wrong with his son.

They arrived outside the ICU where the rest of the family, well most of them, had gathered outside. Phoebe was sitting on the sofa nearest to the double doors with red eyes and tear tracks were running down her cheeks, Coop was sitting next to her while rubbing her back and while he did not look as bad as his wife but that really was not saying much at all.

"Pheebs." Piper said as they moved closer to them and Phoebe rose from the chair as soon as she heard her sister's voice and hurried over to her, pulling her into an embrace as tight as Leo had ever seen, and he had seen the both of them hug a great deal of times over the years. "What is it? What happened?"

"I don't know Piper, just like I said." Phoebe sniffed, a fresh set of tears rolling down her cheeks and when she tried to take in a breath a sob escaped from her throat. "I'm sorry, we were just in my kitchen and we were talking and then he just fell to the ground and he was screaming and he started to throw up blood, and it came out of his ears and his nose and he was thrown into a fit."

It sounded terrifying, it sounded like something straight out of Leo's worst nightmares and he wanted to be ill. Piper had gone even more pale than she had been before, Leo glanced back at their children to find that Wyatt, his golden boy who even in his darkest moments tried to be strong for the rest of his family looked lost and Melinda looked like she was moments away from bursting into tears.

Oh god, Chris.

"What have the Doctors said?" Piper asked, her voice in that moment sounded so much like the way it did in that awful peroid just after Prue had died and Paige had come into their lives, a base of anger in order to hold back the despair and the pain because if she started then she surely would never be able to stop.

Leo had seen it first hand, it had taken her hours to stop crying when she had let it all out at Prue's grave and if Chris died, she would never stop crying and neither would he. There wouldn't be enough tears in all of the world to properly express all of their grief, an ocean's worth would not be enough.

"Aside from asking us a couple of questions when we first got here, they haven't been out to tell us anything yet." Phoebe spoke, her voice barely more than a whisper as Coop rubbed her back and Paige walked over to them. Paige had never stopped dying her hair and right now she had gone back to a light blond which made her already pale skin look even paler.

"Well, that might be a good thing, right?" Paige asked with a shrug of her shoulders, but from the tone of her voice and the look in her eyes it was clear that she was trying to convince herself of that more than she was trying to convince the rest of them. "I mean, if they haven't come out to tell us something by now then they are probably still looking after him, so he probably hasn't gotten any worse."

That was far too many probablys for Leo's comfort, but there was nothing that he could do but hope that Paige was right. There was nothing he could do, helpless all over again.

He needed to sit down.

Thankfully, it seemed that the rest of their family agreed with that as all of the rest of them were spread out across chairs in the waiting room. Leo sat down next to Piper with Paige's daughters on either side of them, Tam had kept her hair short and dark red while her sister Kat kept hers long enough to brush her shoulders and dyed to a light gold. They's both been crying as well.

Chris had always been closer to the twins than anyone else in the family, he had once called them his favourite cousins but Leo knew that the truth of it was that they were his favourites out of the entire family. Even when his son had stopped hanging around with his aunt Paige and started spending more of his time with his Aunt Phoebe, the twins always seemed to be with him.

Kat seemed to be making a point of not looking at them, even when Piper spoke to her all his wife managed to get from her niece was one word answers, her older sister was more willing to look at them if not speak to them and her looks seemed to be very heated indeed, Tamora hadn't just inherited one of Piper's powers she had inherited as she had also inherited her temper as well, and her fierce drive to protect those that she saw as her own.

Which right now, in her mind, seemed to make them the enemy which Leo would not deny was just another bit of pain to add on to the pile.

After what seemed like years, the doors to the ICU opened and an asian woman dressed in scrubs walked out into the waiting room and if Leo wasn't so worried for his son then he would feel sorry for the poor woman who now had over a dozen people in her face, all of them asking her questions at once.

"Everyone, please calm down." The doctor said while at the same time putting her hand up, sadly that did not seem to do whatever she hoped that it would as the family, and Leo wasn't much better he was not proud to admit, continued to ask a thousand different questions. The doctor sighed and brought her fingers to her lips, the whistle that followed was loud enough that it cut all of them off.

"Now, I don't doubt that all of you are worried but you need to stay calm because if you want to help Chris then I need you to answer my questions because I've been doing this job for a long time and I've seen some weird things but this is honestly something I've never seen before. I am not going to mince my words here, Chris was moments ago on death's door and then moments later it was like there wasn't anything wrong with him at all."

Leo felt his legs threatning to buckle as the doctor's words threw him back to that day, when his son that had come back from the future to save us all was laying in the middle of the bed with a stab wound in his gut and such pain in his eyes and there had been nothing he could do to save him, his son had died and not moments ago he had apprently been on death's door.

When he felt his wife's hand slide into his own Leo said nothing but he did squeeze back, wanting her to take as much comfort in him as he was taking from her which to tell the truth was probably the only reason that Leo was still standing right now.

"But, he's all right now, right?" Coop asked and Leo knew that it was childish and unfair but it did not stop him a pang of anger and envy in his gut when he heard the concern in his brother-in-law's voice, and that made him feel guilty. Coop was the boy's uncle, it was only natural that he would be worried for him but Leo knew that what the other man was feeling was not the concern of an uncle for his nephew.

It was the concern for a Father to a son and it made Leo wanted to punch Coop right in the middle of his friendly face and break his nose, he didn't of course because even if he wasn't a Whitelighter anymore he was still a pacfist and it probably wouldn't be a good idea to assualt his brother-in-law in the middle of a hospital.

He needed to make sure that Chris was all right, getting himself thrown out was not going to help that or his son.

"He's better than he was, the bleeding seems to have stopped and his vitals are completely back to normal but that is what worries me. Chris just...got better, he was crashing and loosing so much blood and then he was just...he was just fine. His vitals were normal and it was as if he hadn't lost any blood at all. So, I'm going to need to ask you all some questions-"

The doctor did not get a chance to finish as Piper flung out her hands and froze her, and when Leo glanced around the room it looked like she had frozen the rest of the hospital as well considering that no one else was moving. "Okay, so whatever this is it has to be magic right? I mean I've never heard of a disease that acts like that, it has to be magic which means that we can deal with it with magic, right?"

"I mean, I guess." Wyatt said with a shrug of his shoulders, his hands were shoved deeply in his coat pockets. "When we head home tonight I think I know a spell we can use on Chris to see if he's been affected by any sort of hostile magic, if he has then we should be able to track the magic to where it was cast from, then we find them and we vanquish them."

"That's all great, but there's no way we are going to be able to take Chris out of here tonight. That doctor is not going to let Chris out of her sight, maybe not for a week." Phoebe said with a sigh, shaking her head. "Have I mentioned that I really, really hate being an empath lately?"

In fairness, it had actually been a while since Phoebe had compained about her power, years in fact if Leo's memory wasn't failling him. She had actually grown comfortable with her power, seemed to take pride in it ever since Chris had gained the power as well and she had helped him to control it when he was just a kid and later on helped her own daughters when they gained the power.

"I know Pheebs." Piper said with a smile and reached over to take Phoebe's hand as she smiled at her, all the stress seemed to have left her face like there suddenly wasn't a problem anymore and Leo didn't know how he felt about that. "But this is all good news, Chris is going to be fine. Magic caused this, which means we can use magic to fix it."

"You're assuming that it's magic." Phoebe spoke with a frown, crossing her arms over her chest and biting her bottom lip. "We can't be sure about that, it could be magic yes but what if it is something mortal, we have to be prepared for that, okay?"

"Phoebe come on, what illness acts this way? It makes you vomit up blood and collapse and then moments later you're fine with no sign that anything was wrong with you to start with? That's not some random illness, that's an attack and we are going to deal with it. Chris is going to be fine, he basically is fine. Once this demon or warlock or whatever is good and vanquished."

It was hard to argue with her, Piper always had this amazing way of sounding like she was always in control of everything and when she laid out what she thought was going to happen it almost left no doubt that was just the way that it was going to work and there was nothing to worry about. Maybe it was the pain of losing Prue that had haderned her, forced her to step up but whatever the reason it was increadable to see.

So, why did right now Leo feel like there was something wrong with what she was saying?

Paige certainly seemed more convinced than he felt in that moment, so did Wyatt and Melinda but Phoebe and Coop looked about as unsure as he felt, maybe even more so. "Piper," Leo began in his best 'whitelighter' voice as he stepped closer to his wife. "I'm not saying I disagree with you, none of us are saying that, it's more than likely that you are right and that this is magical, but we aren't going to do any Chris any favours if we don't accept even the slighest chance that this is not magical, that it could be mortal."

"If it's mortal then there is nothing we can do about it." Suddenly, all the control that had been in Piper's voice moments ago had all drained away and for a moment Leo was in their bedroom, years and years back just after Prue had died and Paige had come into their lives and Piper didn't need to be strong for anyone else anymore and she left herself feel the grief. "If this is a normal illness and the doctors haven't seen anything like it before then that means that Chris could be in danger, he could die and there's nothing I can do to stop it, nothing I can do at all."

Piper Halliwell didn't sob, Piper Halliwell didn't scream. In all of the years that Leo Wyatt had known his wife the only time he had seen her break down and fully lose control was when she had screamed at Prue's memorial plaque begging her to come back. But just because his wife did not break down like that, didn't mean that she did not cry.

So when she bent her head and covered her face with her hands and her shoulders shook Leo knew that his wife had reached a hard limit, crying in public even if it was frozen and in front of their kids was almost unheard of. Leo took a step forward to pull her into his arms but Phoebe and Paige beat him to it, the three sisters standing together with their arms around one another and tears shinning on their cheaks.

"I know Piper." Phoebe muttered, so quietly that Leo could barely hear her as she rubbed at her older sister's back. "I know, you have no idea what it was like to stand there and watch it all happen in front of me while there is nothing I could do was the worst thing I've ever seen, and the thought that there is nothing I can do to stop it kills me."

"But Piper, we need to be ready if it's not the case because if it isn't then Chris is going to need us to be there for him cause that means that this is something that Chris can't fight with magic and you know what he's like, your his Mother." Phoebe's voice broke on those words, but only a little bit, as she reached out to move some of her hair behind his ear.

"He's kinda a control freak and if he can't fight this his way then he's going to be really pissed off and that anger's going to be a way for him to hide from the fear and he's going to want to act like he's fine, like he's immortal and that means he's going to probably try to do some real stupid stuff and that means we're going to have to be there for him, to stop him and to help him heal."

Piper stared at her little sister for a long moment before bending her head and letting out a laugh. "You know, going to be honest here I never really read your column that much but if you are actually this good at giving advice then maybe I should start."

"Yeah, well. I'll send you some copies, now unfreeze the Doctor and let's see if we can see him."

The doctor started to speak again as though nothing had happened and as she asked her questions Leo couldn't help but smile when he saw that Phoebe and Piper were still clutching hands as they hadn't done in a very long time.

No matter what, they would all face it together. Like Halliwells and Mitchells always did.

As a Family.

End of Chapter Three

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**If you enjoyed, please consider leaving a review, a favourite and a follow.**

**With much love and warmest regards,**

**DiscordantSymphony**


	4. Chapter 4

Twenty-Four.

Chapter Four

Oh, he was never going to hear the end of this he could just tell. His family were the biggest bunch of worries that he had ever known, he remembered once when he was a kid and he had chicken pox he had been confined to his bed and both of his aunts had dropped whatever it was that they were doing and came over to see him.

That by itself had not been the problem, the problem had been that after they had left Aunt Phoebe had been calling every five seconds and Aunt Paige kept orbing in just to make sure that he was all right and his mom had kept feeding him chicken noodle soup that it had started to come out of his nose.

He loved them for it, of course. But they were all so insufferable, of course he knew that he wasn't much better when it came to that. Kat and Tam loved to remind him of a time when Tam had broken her leg and had been confined basically for days and days to the sofa in the apartment that she shared with her twin and Chris had basically spent all of his free time coming over and making meals for her and cleaning for her and basically being as bad a mother hen and nag as his Mother ever had.

So yeah fine, he might be as bad as the rest of them but that did not change the fact that being on the receiving end of the treatment was always irritating.

Even so, he had to admit that what had happened when he had been in Aunt Phoebe's kitchen had been kind scary, and he fought demons pretty much every other hour. He didn't scare easily, but the pain had been so great and it had been so sudden that he hadn't been able to think, he had just collapsed to the floor as he brought up all of the blood.

He had been so scared, he had thought that he was dying. Worse than that, he had thought that it had meant that his other self had finally caught up with him and that his own mind was going to get overwritten by his so when he had woken up and found that his mind was still his own he hadn't been able to stop the tears of relief from rolling down his cheeks.

He had wiped them away before anyone could see them, of course. He wasn't going to let anyone think that he was weak, that he couldn't cope with anything and everything that life was going to throw at him even whatever the hell this was because he could. He didn't need to let his family think that he was not coping as they would pity him, and he really couldn't cope with that.

He had been told by more than one person that might not be the best way to deal with his issues, to simply act like they didn't affect him at all. To be strong and silent and to just endure, waves crashing against an immovable cliff face that always withstood them. Chris didn't really know any other way to be, not anymore.

Even with the people that were around him, his cousins and his Aunt Phoebe were the best things in his life and he loved them but he didn't like depending on them, he didn't like depending on anyone. That had started after his realization that his parents were waiting for the other him to come back and take over his life.

It was easier to cope with that if he could tell himself that he was the only one that he could truly rely on, it made when his parents let him down hurt that much less if he told himself that he couldn't depend on them right from the start. Some might say that was unfair to them, they hadn't been cruel to him when he had been growing up and they had shown him that they had loved him on any other day that wasn't his birthday.

But he didn't know any other way to be, not anymore. You could get used to anything, even things that made sure you were on your own in the end. His eyes burned for a moment and Chris slammed his eyes shut and forced the tears back, he was not a child. He was not going to cry, he wasn't. He was not going to cry.

After a few moments, the burning of his eyes had subsided and when he took in a breath it did not make his chest ache and when he opened his eyes his vision was clear. He was fine, he would not accept himself being anything other than that.

There was a knock at the door of his hospital room but it was clear that whoever was on the other side of it was just trying to be polite, as a woman in a doctor's coat walked in. Her face did look vaguely familiar, Chris didn't think she was the Doctor who had spoken to him when he had first woken up but she might have been one of the doctors who had helped him as he was having his...fit. For lack of a better word.

"Good to see that you're properly awake now Chris, you gave all of us a bit of a scare." The doctor said with a smile, it was that awful sort of smile that doctors gave when they had seen a lot of people die but they knew on some level that they had to at least trying to be comforting to their patients while they were in their care. "How do you feel?"

"Like I got run over by a truck, a limo and a clown car in that order and then all the clowns got out of the car and danced on my spine before they got off of me. So, you know. Pretty good." Chris said with a laugh, well, he tried to laugh. To be honest, he was so tired that the noise that came out of his mouth could probably be mistaken for a heavy sigh. "What's the verdict?"

"We're not entirely sure, to be honest with you. I think that we have some questions that we are going to have to answer together. But, for the moment those can wait. Your family is here to see you, and can I just say that you have a lot of family." Despite himself, Chris couldn't help but laugh at that. It did tend to be the thing that people first noticed about his family.

At times, he wasn't sure how he felt about it, having one that was so big. At the best of times it was the best thing in his life, it meant that he had always someone that he could turn to when he really needed them to be there but on the other hand it also meant that he was never ever alone for anything longer than a few seconds.

"Yeah, I do. They driving you crazy?" Chris said with a smirk of his own, if he could convince the doctor that he was fine now then maybe she would be more willing to let him get out of here if she thought that he was well enough. He certainly wasn't acting like someone who had just had a medical emergency, and honestly he felt fine.

Well, okay. He was a little bit freaked out but who wouldn't be when it came to something like this? But he had dealt with worse than this in his life, and he had done that on his own before and he could do it again as well. He just did not want to have to deal with this right now on top of everything else in his life.

He was just so tired, he wanted to just shut his eyes and sleep for a year but he could do that once he was back home, wherever that was meant to be because at times he really wasn't sure anymore. Was it the Manor that he hadn't been to in a year, because he still hadn't forgiven his parents for showing him how little he actually mattered to them, or was it his Aunt Phoebe and Uncle Coop's house with all of his cousins. Was it at Magic School, was it down in the Underworld maybe where he fought demons and warlocks where he felt like he had an actual purpose in the world?

He didn't know, and that was the whole problem. He didn't really belong anywhere, any chance he had to earn his parents love, to have any sort of place with them had been stolen away by another version of himself that had died to save them, to save the future and everything that all of them held dear and how could anyone hope to compete with that.

For a horrible moment, tears burned his eyes and Chris thought that he would not be able to hold them back but thankfully he had a lot of practice and so after that moment had passed he managed to force the tears back and kept giving the Doctor the most charming smile that he had and thankfully it seemed that it was as effective as always as the doctor smiled back at him.

"I've been hammered with my fair share of questions, yeah. And when I'm not getting questions I'm getting demands to let them see you." The doctor sighed then and rubbed at her eyes. "I have to admit, it's getting harder and harder to say no to them. So, I thought that I come and ask you first, do you think that you're up to visitors at the moment?"

A part of Chris desperately wanted to say no to that, and he knew that if he did say no that his Mother would not forgive him and would more than likely just freeze the doctor and force her way into his room. Sometimes, the path of least resistance was the best way to deal with Piper Halliwell. And so, making sure his smile was still firmly on his face, he nodded.

The doctor nodded back at him and then left the room and Chris took the few moments he was alone to brace himself for the tsunami that was about to be crash down on to him, he really did love all of his family but they were a lot to deal with even when he was feeling at his best. And he was absolutely not at his best at the moment, not even close if he was going to be honest.

His mom was the first one through the door, which wasn't a surprise. Piper Halliwell would never let anyone else take the lead if she could do it herself, Chris tried to smile at her but he got the sense that it didn't look that convincing. There was too much between them, to much of a distance and Chris didn't really know if there was any way for them to bridge the divide between them now.

He wasn't even sure if he wanted to.

She looked so sad and moved to sit next to his bed and reached out for his hand and Chris didn't have it in him to pull it away from her. What began as a trickle was now a flood as the rest of his family entered his room and Chris had never been tempted to go into a medical profession so he couldn't say for sure but he got the sense that there should not be that many people in a hospital room at once.

"How you feeling bud?" His dad asked as he cupped the back of Chris's head in his hand, it was odd to have such a tender gesture from his Dad. He knew that he did have them, if he asked for a hug then his dad would give him one, but he never really did it unprompted like he did with Wyatt or Mel. Chris had to ask, it was stupid but it hurt that he had to nearly die in order to get it without asking.

"I'm fine Dad, really. Right as rain." Chris tried to make his smile seem stronger but his Aunt Phoebe was looking deep into him, she knew him best and knew that he was lying to them. "So, when I can get out of here?"

"They want to keep you in for a few days little dude, run some tests." Aunt Paige said as she stood in the corner of the room, her arms cross over the chest. An easy smirk on her face that she always wore when she was trying to convince everyone that she was fine and not to worry, Chris could see through it though. He always could. He had to wonder if she could see through him as easily.

Probably.

"Yeah, I figured as much." Chris shrugged and then began to pick at a loose thread of his blanket. "Course, I am a grown man. I could just discharge myself and walk out of here, not like they could really do anything to stop me."

"You try and walk out of this room and I will put you back into that bed and make sure you can't get out." Wyatt was quick to respond and Chris knew that he meant it and for a moment, his lips threatened to quirk into an actual smile instead of the pale imitation that was currently on his face.

"I'll help." Tam carried on and that sent Chris into a laugh, he had forgotten how much he loved. But he did, more than anything. It was a nice reminder that no matter how much some of his family might want another version of him, a better version of him, that didn't change the fact that some of his family loved him just as he was. And he loved them for it.

"You're going to be fine Peanut, this isn't anything to do with you." His mom whispered and reached out to stroke his cheek with her thumb and unlike with his Dad, where he was pleased but surprised with her...it felt wrong. It felt false, maybe that wasn't fair to him. That he held her to something of a higher standard. A different standard.

But every betrayal, every time his Mother had made it clear that he wasn't good enough. That he was an inferior version of the son that she had lost, that whatever love she had for him would always be second to her grief for Chris Perry, it always hurt more when it was her. So it was harder for him to forgive her for it.

But he didn't want another fight so he didn't pull away from the touch, but he didn't lean into it either. "What do you mean?" He found himself asking without really thinking about it.

"Well...I mean, there's no way this isn't magical." His mom spoke with a warm smile, the sort of smile which had been common in his youth but he couldn't remember the last time he had actually seen it. The smile that always meant that everything was going to be okay. "It's a demon or a warlock or something else and we're going to destroy it."

"Piper-" His dad started but Piper was quick to cut him off.

"I'm not an idiot Leo, he's staying here for as long as he needs. Cover all of our bases, but this has to be magical. What else could it be?" Piper asked and none of them knew what to say to that, because by the logic of their lives she was right. A sudden illness that came out of nowhere and then seemingly vanished just as quickly? What else could it be, but magic?

In fact, Chris was pretty sure that it was magical in nature as well. But what concerned him, was that this might not be an attack at all. But he had gone completely dead to the world he had felt...something. He really wasn't sure at all how to describe it, it was like just for a moment there had been. Someone else, another presence. Another mind.

Another him.

Him.

It had been him, it had been Chris Perry. He had been there with him, not just in his head but for a moment the two of them had been together. And for a moment, before he had been able to come back, Chris Perry had been more himself than Chris had.

As Chris looked around him, at all his family all around him, he knew that he should tell them. That he had to tell them if he was going to find a way to stop it from happening again, whatever it was.

But he didn't, he couldn't. Because when it came down to it, Christopher Halliwell was certain of one very simple truth.

If it came down to him or to Chris Perry, he couldn't be certain that they would choose him.

This was his life and if somehow this was happening, that Chris Perry was trying to take his place. Well, fuck that. He wasn't going to go without a fight.

He wasn't going to go.

End of Chapter Four

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**There's no excuses for the delay, other than that this year has been the year from hell, as it has been for most of us and it's been harder to balance everything and find the energy to write as well.**

**I hope this chapter was worth the wait, at least.**

**With warmest regards,**

**DiscordantSymphony**


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